[[Mohan K.V 2016-07-02, 21:03:48 Source]]
सदास्वादरोमन्थः
Dear readers,
Many thanks as always for your great feedback. First off, we received a number of comments on some of our old chapters, and nothing could give us more delight. We’re very grateful for all your inputs below, please keep them coming!
In chapter 61 on the Gīta, we had noted how it was Arjuna who happened to need Krishna’s instruction, instead of, say, Yudhiṣṭhira, and how this was somewhat of a surprise given their characters. Dr. Arvind Iyer recalled an observation by Prof. Purushottama Lal, where he attributes this anomaly to the fact that Arjuna has had very different experiences than the rest. For example, he has traveled more and stayed away more than any other prince in the Kuru line, thereby increasing his sense of family; he is more individualistic, in the sense that he feels that he can walk away, even at the time of inspecting the enemy formation after the conches have been blown; and yet, because he is individualistic, there is a strong sense of pacifism and detachment from strong social forces around him (‘kim no rājyena, Govinda? Kim bhogair, jīvitena vā?’); he has no insecurity about his prowess, and therefore has the space to worry about morality, and so on.
About chapter 74 on the Raghuvaṃśa’s introduction, Dr. Karthikeyan drew a great parallel between the humility of Kālidāsa in the introduction of the Raghuvaṃśa, with the humility of Kamban in the introduction to his Rāmāyaṇa. Quoting him,
அறையும் ஆடு அரங்கும் மடப் பிள்ளைகள்
தறையில் கீறிடில் தச்சரும் காய்வரோ?
இறையும் ஞானம் இலாத என் புன் கவி
முறையின் நூல் உணர்ந்தாரும் முனிவரோ?
Aṟaiyum āṭu araṅkum maṭap piḷḷaikaḷ
taṟaiyil kīṟiṭil taccarum kāyvarō?
Iṟaiyum ñāṉam ilāta eṉ puṉ kavi
muṟaiyiṉ nūl uṇarntārum muṉivarō?
“If immature kids scratch the outlines of stages and rooms
on sand, will the artisans get angry?
(Likewise,) will my unwise, muddled poetry
anger the learned scholars?”
In Tamil, such humility is apparently known as ‘avaiyaḍakkam’, ‘humility in the presence of scholars’.
He had an innovative take on Kālidāsa’s famous ‘athavā kṛta-vāg-dvāre’ verse. On the face of it, Kālidāsa appears very humble, saying that his job is as simple as a thread going through a gemstone which has already been pierced through with a diamond (older poets being the diamonds who pierce through the gemstones of the subject-matter). But there is a clever dhvani here: even great pearls are of limited use if all they can do is sit on a jewel box. It’s the thread which makes them wearable, and into an object of pride and enjoyment. So perhaps the thread is not so humble after all!
This is the beauty of a great upama. Like a child, it may go far beyond anything the creator-poet had planned for it. We had read this verse dozens of times, and this interpretation had never struck us.
In chapter 79, we had written of Śaṃkara’s grief at his mother’s passing. K. S. Srikanth recalled this recent article on mortality, which touches on many of the sentiments we have been exploring in that and the past few chapters.
In chapter 80 on Indradyumna and the following Romantha 21, we had explored some of the links between identity and being remembered. Mmanu Chaturvedi chipped in with a brilliant sher by Sufi Tabassum, which does some delightful mischief with the idea and offers a kind of complementary view. A lover is complaining to his beloved about her not giving him due attention (when have beloveds ever been capable of such mercies!):
Allāh kare jahān ko meri yād bhūl jāye
Allāh kare ke tum kabhi aisa na kar sako
“I wish that the whole world forgets me,
But that God doesn’t ever let you do so!”
If the poet’s wish comes to pass, his beloved will be in a very sorry state: he is still very much a living memory to her, but one that can’t be shared with anyone else. Would Akūpāra, the old tortoise who was the only one to remember Indradyumna, have felt the same burden?
In chapter 81, we had written about many of Kālidāsa’s great similes from the Raghuvaṃśa. Piyush Srivastava wrote in to mention a section in the Ramcharitmanas where Tulsidas gives free rein to his powers of upamā, which seem to be a worthy challenge to the master himself. Some selections:
घन घमंड नभ गरजत घोरा। प्रिया हीन डरपत मन मोरा॥
“The sky, dense with dark clouds, thunders aloud, my mind grows troubled by separation with my beloved.”
The idea that the monsoon season is particularly hard to bear for those separated from their beloved is a common motif of Sanskrit poetry as well.
छुद्र नदीं भरि चलीं तोराई। जस थोरेहुँ धन खल इतराई॥
“Small rivulets fill up and break their banks, just as the wicked are proud of little wealth.”
The ‘nanga naach’ of the wicked rich seems to have been just as irritating back in Tulsi’s time!
बरषहिं जलद भूमि निअराएँ। जथा नवहिं बुध बिद्या पाएँ॥
“The rain clouds come near the earth, just as scholars bow down when they acquire knowledge.”
At first glance, a cloud ‘gives’, whereas a student acquiring knowledge ‘takes’. But in a deeper reading, the student also ‘gives’ to the guru the joy of teaching, whereas the cloud ’takes’ from the earth the weight of expectation. They both give and take, and the correlation between the superficial and deep elements makes this verse an absolute delight!
In chapter 82 on the Puṇyakoṭi song, we had omitted a key verse that is very popular. Just as Puṇyakoṭi is about to leave her child, she requests the other cows:
ಮುಂದೆ ಬಂದರೆ ಹಾಯದೀರಿ ಹಿಂದೆ ಬಂದರೆ ಒದೆಯದೀರಿ
ನಿಮ್ಮಕಂದನೆಂದು ಕಂಡಿರಿ ತಬ್ಬಲಿಯ ಕಂದೈದನೆ S.16, DLN 81
“Please don’t mow him down if he crosses your path; please don’t kick him back if he follows you.
Please see this orphan as your own child”
Although some metaphorical meanings are possible, the sense in the song is that Puṇyakoṭi is quite literally worried about her child’s physical safety. At first glance, this appears maudlin and sentimental, especially in a translation. But it is the truth: these are the things she worries about! How many times have we not found ourselves worrying about a trivial, unnecessary detail like this? It is no wonder that many people remember this song by this verse alone!
The video of the song is a great picturization in action of many concepts of art appreciation and enjoyment that occupy our thoughts. The audience is fully emotionally involved in the scene being played out in front of them. They obviously know that what they’re seeing is a (not very realistic-looking) scene being played by the local kids. But the same kid in a tiger costume who is met with blank stares when he pops up among the audience is taken seriously as a real tiger once he is on stage. All enactments are treated with similar generosity of heart, and the myriad defects are all forgiven. The tears at 4:19 are real, and the audience shots at ~4:31 and ~5:13 are great touches. The highlight is at the end at 6:00 when the simple audience starts putting together its hands and praying. Are they worshipping the actors on stage? Of course not. They identify that there is something worthy of veneration and give expression to this feeling without reservation. That is what marks the play as successful.
The video is in a sense a very tasteful fiction of an ideal. A vast audience is fully engaged; everyone’s watching the same thing; there are no distractions; there is no feeling of under-stimulation, because there is no higher stimulation available for the villagers; and so on.
We have all been through moments that approximate this ideal: a cricket world cup quarter-final in one’s hometown, an unexpected power cut in a college hostel one evening, a family crowd gathered around the TV for a movie everyone’s excited about… The value of the video is very much in capturing that sense of belonging to a unified consciousness that is observing and reacting to the same event. Our nostalgia seems to be not just for the song itself, but for such immersive experiences.
Like in Arjuna’s case, it may even be that increasing individualism makes these few instances of immersion highly valuable, in a śaśī bhāti triyāmayā sense (a famous quote goes, triyāmā śaśīnā bhāti, śaśī bhāti triyāmayā “the night shines because of the moon, and the moon shines because of the night”)
Although on the face of it Puṇyakoṭi seems like a children’s story, we wonder if it appeals to children as much as it does to adults. Children seem to prefer action to emotion, and it is in fact adults who increasingly value the softer hues (for which they are mocked mercilessly by children!). Whatever that may be, we can say for sure it appeals to adults, who appear to have a greater and greater craving for innocence and simplicity, for a kind of ‘stylized childlike-ness’. A commenter elsewhere remarked that his crying habits had reversed as he grew up. As a child, movies never fazed him, but a stubbed toe would bring him to tears. As an adult, even a highly painful leg fracture didn’t cause any urge to cry, but the right movie scene would open the floodgates like nothing else. In this context, consider the lasting appeal of the Śuka-Śakra-saṃvāda.
Puṇyakoṭi’s appeal easily transcends the borders of language, region and time. There is an exceptional translation into Hindi by Suryabhanu Gupta, which retains the original metre despite a slightly different vowel structure in Hindi (the ‘Schwa syncope’). Another highlight of Gupta’s translation is that the refrain wisely refrains from moralizing: it is simply, ‘ek thi mā puṇyakoṭi, hai usī ki yah kathā’.
It is rendered by the great Mohammad Rafi, whose tonal artistry is the stuff of legend. Indeed, Rafi was a hero and inspiration for P. B. Sreenivas. We’ll let the listeners decide where the guru or the śiṣya did a better job with this song!
There is a wonderful translation into Sanskrit by Dr. Shankar Rajaraman. We were blown away by the śabdālaṅkāra artistry in it:
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Clever changes to fit sound of the translation but staying true to the original meaning: “एहि जननि शुभान्तरङ्गे”, “अनुदिनं शाययतु का तव / तनयमयि …”
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Clever word choices to fit the dvitīya-akṣara-prāsa (ādiprāsa): “सा पयोभिरपूरि दोह- / स्थापिता च नवा घटी”
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The excellent ‘ṭa’ alliteration for the tiger intro: “विकट-गिरि-मध्ये बुभुक्षा- / विकल-मतिरद्भुत-सुनामा / निकट-भुवि कटकस्य वसति / प्रकट-कोपो व्याघ्र-राट्”
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and finally, great samāsas, Kālidāsīya and beyond: “बुभुक्षा-विकल-मति”, “अपरिमित-परि-कुपित-मति”, “पलायन-पण्डिता”, …
Truly, Sanskrit is in good hands.
The chapter garnered some of the most extensive feedback in recent memory, and we thank you for your attention. Jaisimha Tatachar noted that the Puṇyakoṭi story has been appropriated by various groups for various political ends. One group turned Arbhuta into a female tiger with young cubs, who has a heart-to-heart with Puṇyakoṭi on feeding children. This change brings up many new lines of thought. For example, a female tiger with cubs seems to be a less tragic figure than a lonely male tiger. One can imagine having a fruitful discussion on gender roles starting from here. Unfortunately, the group went on to bring poor Kālinga into the story to do various stereotypical acts of ‘oppressors’. Another group deleted the scene where the tiger kills itself, and instead made it give up beef-eating. Perhaps it is a testament to the power of this song that so many groups want to use it for so much more than poetic enjoyment!
Meera Raghunathan made a great observation about the names of the cows: names like ‘Tungabhadrā’ and ‘Ranganāyakī’, and the affection with which they are called, seem to have a magical evocative power to people of a certain generation and milieu. To our minds, it brings to mind scenes like in this song.
In regard to the scene where Puṇyakoṭi smiles at her calf’s suggestion to just not go, Dr. Arvind Iyer made an interesting connection. The ‘Aathichoodi’ is a set of sayings taught in Tamil kindergarten (one for each letter of the alphabet), written by the poetess Avvaiyyār almost 2000 years ago. Curiously, it begins, ‘Aṟam seiya virumbu’ “Desire doing righteous deeds’’ – not a command to do righteous deeds, but to inculcate a more basal desire to do them. There may be a thousand reasons why one is compelled to do the wrong thing in a particular situation, and a commandment to not do so becomes weaker with every transgression. In contrast, by recognizing that it is the desire to do good that is fundamental, there is always a door open for amends. Few children would remember being thrilled by Aathichoodi lessons, but for millions of adults rediscovering it, it is nothing short of a revelation.
About a hundred years ago, the great poet Subramania Bharati developed a ‘remake’ of sorts of the Aathichoodi. In it, he replaced the first aphorism with: ‘Achcham thavir’ ‘Remove fear’. Bharati wrote it at the time of the fight for Indian independence, but it is remarkable how well the same aphorism applies to Puṇyakoṭi as well!
Bharati’s ‘remake’ appeals to us more than the original, even beyond the first aphorism. A talented writer has the capacity to identify the key elements of a work, and remake it so that it is all the more relevant to the times, and therefore much more compelling than the original.
We think a similar dynamic was at play with the parting thought of the Puṇyakoṭi chapter, where Yakṣagāna artists filigreed a brilliant pattern into a verse from the Rāmāyaṇa. Let us consider that verse again:
धर्मात्मा सत्यसन्धश्च रामो दाशरथिर् यदि ।
पौरुषे चाप्रतिद्वन्द्वः शरैनं जहि रावणिम् ॥6.78.31
dharmātmā satyasandhaśca rāmo dāśarathir yadi |
pauruṣe cāpratidvandvaḥ śarainaṃ jahi rāvaṇim ||
“If it is true that Rāma is a man of Dharma, a man of the Truth, the son of Daśaratha,
that he is is unparalleled in valor, O arrow, kill Indrajit!”
To be frank, the original verse is somewhat sub-par. The first phrase is good: Lakṣmaṇa sees Rāma as an ideal of righteousness, and is fighting for him with that motivation. But why is that followed by ‘man of truth’? Can a dharmātmā ever not be a satya-sandha? Even worse, what is so great about him being Dāśarathi that the arrow should care? The ‘pauruṣe cāpratidvandvaḥ’ phrase takes the cake: on two occasions directly preceding this scene, Rāma was roundly defeated by Indrajit. The first time he had to be rescued by Garuḍa’s intervention on Hanumān’s request, and the second time Hanumān himself had to bail him out by bringing the whole Sañjīvanī mountain to the battlefield. We’re seeing a lot of pressure against the apratidvandva hypothesis!
The Yakṣagāna filigree brilliantly rescues it. The arrow simply doesn’t budge for the first three, and the himmela explains why. Lakṣmaṇa is a little flustered, and by the time he says, ‘pauruṣe cāpratidvandvaḥ’, it is not so much a declaration, but a tentative question of faith. The thinking seems to be, “I’ve exhausted all other motivations. I sincerely believe Rāma is unparalleled in valor. But the last couple days have been a jolt. Were they merely statistical flukes or are we really fated to lose this?”. To this, the arrow replies favorably with its actions and kills Indrajit. The world of Yakṣagāna seems to be filled to the brim with such brilliant last minute rescues!
(In the description of the verse in the chapter, we made an error: we had said Lakṣmaṇa utters the verse while Rāma is being held captive by Indrajit. Actually, Indrajit had held Rāma captive twice in the preceding two days, but he managed to escape both times. This scene occurs on the third day. When Lakṣmaṇa kills Indrajit, Rāma is not in the picture.)
In chapter 83 on the Kabandha, we noted that Kabandha’s request to Rāma was a strange one: to cremate him, and thereby liberate him from his current body. Rāma does so, a divine being appears and gives directions on where to go next.
This is just one of many instances where Rāma finds himself with the joyless, thankless task of cremation: Daśaratha, Virādha, Jaṭāyu, Kabandha, and famously, even Rāvaṇa (‘kriyatām asya saṃskāraḥ mamāpyeṣa yathā tava’). Whatever spiritual use one may believe cremations serve, at least as far as this life is concerned, they are physically, mentally and emotionally draining. Even in the case of Rāvaṇa, we wonder what Rāma felt. The joy of winning a fight would not have lasted very long. Rāvaṇa was, after all, a “co-author” of Rāma’s life story, and knowing Rāma’s sensitivity (‘ripūṇām api vatsalaḥ’), Rāvaṇa’s death would have been a tragic event in its own right. The act of cremation seems to knot together everything disagreeable about life’s larger structure, from the palpable, physical horror of a lifeless body, to the abstract truths of impermanence and pervasive fragility. That Rāma had to take charge of so many cremations suggests that there is some deeper feature here for us to explore further sometime.
Earlier in the chapter, Kabandha says that he had received a blessing of long life from Brahma. Somehow, most of Brahma’s blessings turn out to be pretty bad moves. Aadisht Khanna observes a pattern in various gods’ blessings. For example,
Boons granted by Shiva or Brahma: Usually, these boons are won by demons through severe austerity or devotion, after which Brahma or Shiva rewards the petitioner with an excellent boon. After that, the recipient of the boon uses it to terrorise the natural order, and finally Vishnu (on in one case, Durga) has to step in and exploit a loophole in the boon to restore status quo. Examples: Ravana, Mahishasura, Bakasura, and so forth. The only exception I’ve seen to this pattern so far is Shiva’s boon to Amba that she will be transformed into Shikhandin in her next birth in order to slay Bhishma – with this boon, there is no interference by Vishnu.
Brahma is generally in charge of creation and Śiva, destruction. Their ‘rashness’ in bestowing boons seems to be an allegory for the inherent rashness involved in any act of creativity or destruction (or, what seems to be the norm in these Schumpeterian times, creative destruction). Śiva, the Āśu-toṣa (‘one who is easily satisfied’), even has a popular name ‘Bholenāth’, ‘guileless, innocent in granting wishes’. In contrast, it is poor Viṣṇu, who is charged with sustenance, who has to scramble to keep order. We wonder if such allegorical ideas can be extended to other gods as well.
We love it that the Kabandha problem ultimately had an ‘engineering’ solution! Lakṣmaṇa’s timely observation that Kabandha had no way to defend his arms, and that they had an easy shot at his shoulders, proved to be the way out. This space of ‘engineering’ problem-solving seems to be rather different from the space of emotions and poetry. The entire vocation of politics appears to be based on the skill of confusing one for the other :-)
Later in our discussion of Vālmīki’s genius in creating the allegory, we had mentioned that plot is a kind of ‘language’ by itself, with its own syntax, grammar and flow. In our world, ‘understanding’ an experience like depression with explicit words is valued highly, probably because it can be shared. But the mind ‘understands’, is very ‘intelligent’ and ‘creates’ in many ways, and most of them don’t involve language. Plot and characters are one such outlet. When all such possible outlets are considered, it is unlikely that there is a big gap in intelligence or understanding between any two groups: the modern and the ancient, east and west, young and old. It is only in a somewhat ‘artificial’ setting like a school or election that only certain kinds of intelligence seem to dominate.
On a lighter note, not all allegories need to be intentional. A few years ago, the Dublin Bus service proposed cuts to a number of bus routes that had low ridership. Some of these routes had some nostalgic value to the residents, who held massive protests against the cuts. The Dublin Bus spokesman had a wry comment to make: “If only a fraction of the protesters actually used the route, we’d have no need reason to cancel it.” This sentiment unexpectedly found itself to be a profound critique of the 2011 Lokpal protests against corruption!
In chapter 84 on Dilīpa’s curse, we had mentioned pūjya-pūjā-vyatikrama entailed a sense of ‘sacredness’ toward work: we found a recent example in the late neurosurgeon Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s book, When Breath Becomes Air. A great poet’s words echoes across the millennia, and across professions, for the simple reason that it observes the fundamental sentiments that drive our actions with sympathy and attention.
Poor Dilīpa is suffering the consequences of a curse, but is unaware of it. This applies to so many situations of modern life that we couldn’t resist recalling a plot device created by another mahākavi in his own right, Douglas Adams: Vogon hyperspace bypasses :-)
We received a barrage of feedback for this chapter as well. Śatāvadhāni Dr. R. Ganesh also felt that the episode had been a knot. He suggested a different kind of resolution: ultimately, it was Vasiṣṭha who recalled the episode, and his relationship with Dilīpa may have influenced the narrative he presented. For instance, even though Dilīpa may have had a more active role in the incident, Vasiṣṭha may have chosen not to highlight it. Perhaps Dilīpa was of the frame of mind where he could bear a difficulty if he had no role in causing it, but would find it much harder to cope if he did? The poet is very clever in letting only his characters speak: it is always tricky rationing intention between the poet himself and his characters.
Prof. Pramod Viswanath mentioned that the line ‘nadati ākāśa-gaṅgāyāḥ srotasi uddāma-diggaje’ ‘the roar of the banks of the celestial Gaṅgā, which was frequented by diggajas’ is very characteristic of Kālidāsa. The first half of this verse still mentions a curse: ‘sa śāpaḥ na tvayā rājan na ca sārathinā śrutaḥ’; to remain harmonious with our reading, any of of countless alternatives could be used, for example, ‘ajānatā tvayā rājan niryātam atiraṃhasā’.
Prof. Viswanath wondered why a poet of such fine balance as Kālidāsa, he of the ‘puraskṛta-madhyama-krama’ fame, would not register a note of protest against the events of the chapter. He suggests that one possibility is that many of our poets paint a very ‘deterministic’ world in their works: to them, the ‘law’ of karma is not an observation of a broad social phenomenon, but an exact linkage of cause and effect. They want to precisely identify the provenance (why and how) of every event in a character’s life. Of course, this quirk doesn’t make Kālidāsa any less enjoyable: it simply is a gentle reminder that even our timeless poets can have worldviews different from ours :-)
Prof. Viswanath also noted that Dilīpa’s curse is somewhat unique in that it does not entail any costs to Surabhi. Contrast with the stories of Viśvāmitra, who had to constantly keep an eye on his tapas account and not go into overdraft.
One argument in defense of Surabhi’s curse is that our reading is too serious, and places one isolated event in an unfairly harsh light. We said that being cursed to be childless is a great misery. Maybe so, but it is hardly a unique occurrence in our literature. Indeed, even a brief perusal of the literature suggests that hankering for children is the default state of kings, from Daśaratha to Aśvapati to the countless Chandamama-style stories (a policy so profound as the Doctrine of Lapse was devised with this idea). In fact, if poor Dilīpa begot children in the normal course, it’d be a rare enough occurrence to be of note!
In the larger picture, such thinking suggests that no matter what the event, life is bigger than it, and even a lack as big as this can still be accommodated in a happy life. That no matter how hard it can seem, there are always thousands of others who have experienced it, and with whom one can talk and learn. That no matter what, there is a spectrum of people experiencing worse and better, and life just is different at each point in that spectrum.
Another defense is that Kālidāsa’s Surabhi is an exceptional depiction of actual human behavior, not an idealized divine cow. It would be nice if real human beings didn’t take offence to trivial things or acted rashly when angry, but that isn’t the real world. How many examples do we need? A common folk gamaka applied to the story Mantharā in the Rāmāyaṇa is that she loved Rāma dearly, but Kausalya did not let her care for him and drove her away. Because of this, she bore a grudge against Kausalya, and brought the whole kingdom down. Millions of people find this back-story convincing. Similarly, Duryodhana’s jealousy began with Draupadi’s smirk, Sītā’s kidnapping with Śurpanakhā’s annoyance, and Hariścandra’s travails with Viśvāmitra’s irritation. Elsewhere, referencing a more earthy dynamic, a Tamil quip goes, ‘Pukkātthu pūnaiyai kūḍa madikkaveṇḍum’ ‘Even a cat of the in-laws’ house must be respected’.
We had mentioned taking offence at petty things was akin to the actions of ‘some official in a hinterland government office’. We got some strong pushback from present and past government employees: poor hinterland officials have nothing on the highest-ranking officials when it comes to caprice and pettiness. Transfers to godforsaken places (‘neeru nele illada jaaga’) have been initiated for slights far more benign than Dilīpa’s oversight. It is as if as people grow older and more senior, they become more sensitive and prone to being offended!
As always, we welcome any thoughts, feedback and suggestions from you all. Please email us at kvm….@gmail.com and shree…@gmail.com
Parting Thought
The last few chapters have been heavy on narratives and perspectives. There has been a lot of talk about the ‘meaning’ of things, far beyond what the poet likely intended. We were reminded of this anonymous verse:
लौकिकानां हि साधूनाम् अर्थं वाग् अनुवर्तते ।
ऋषीणां पुनर् आद्यानां वाचम् अर्थो ऽनुधावति ॥
laukikānāṃ hi sādhūnām arthaṃ vāg anuvartate |
ṛṣīṇāṃ punar ādyānāṃ vācam artho ’nudhāvati ||
“[In the speech] of ordinary people, words follow the speaker’s meaning.
For the ancient sages, meaning runs after their words”
All the meaning we have mined from a few words seems to pantingly agree!
Naturally, parody can’t be far behind such juicy ideas. DVG writes of an incident of the great poet Sri Tiruvengadayya (whom we had met a couple Romanthas ago). At the time, he was serving as the headmaster of a Telugu middle school. He was a devout scholar of Telugu literature, and had truly given his heart to the quirks of classical Telugu poetry. One such quirk was internal rhyme (prāsa), and he held many classes for his students on its beauties and appreciation. One enthusiastic śiṣya came up to him with an verse he had written:
ಅಂಡಾಂಡ ಪಿಂಡಾಂಡ ಬ್ರಹ್ಮಾಂಡ ಭಾಂಡಂಬು
ಧಂಡಿಗಾ ಭಂಡಿಗಾ ಮೆಂಡವೆಲೆಸೆ |
ತೆರತೂರ್ಣ ಪರಿಪೂರ್ಣ ಪೂರ್ಣ ಘೂರ್ಣಿತಮಯ್ಯಿ
ಚೂರ್ಣಂಬು ನೂರ್ಣಂಬು ಪೂರ್ಣಮಯ್ಯೆ ||
aṇḍāṇḍa piṇḍāṇḍa brahmāṇḍa bhāṇḍambu
dhaṇḍigā bhaṇḍigā meṇḍa-velese .
tera-tūrṇa pari-pūrṇa pūrṇa ghūrṇitamayyi
cūrṇambu nūrṇambu pūrṇamayye ..
The guru read this and asked the śiṣya, “What does this mean, my boy?” The śiṣya nonchalantly explained, “I’ve not set the meaning yet. I set the words so that it sounds right. When I get time, I’ll have to find some meaning.”
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